The Southern California Edison energy company contracted out Tesla last week to provide 20-megawatts of energy storage equipment to their power grid. The equipment will be used to stop blackouts should the grid’s main fossil-fuel based energy sources fail. The Tesla Powerpack energy storage units will be installed at a SCE substation in Mira Loma and must be up and running by the end of December.

The amount of equipment being installed is enough to keep 2,500 homes with power for a day, or enoughto charge 1,000 Tesla cars, the company claimed in a blog post.

The cost of the complete energy storage system isn’t clear. As noted by Bloomberg, a 2-megawatt Tesla energy storage system runs around $2.9 million, and contracts that involve more energy than that are negotiated on a per-situation basis.

In late 2015, the Aliso Canyon natural gas reservoir ruptured, causing a major spill of methane gas and forcing over 8,000 local residents out of their homes. Following this incident, the California government has been attempting to expand its energy-storage storage efforts to prevent any potential loss of power during times of high electricity usage.

Last month, California officials green-lighted two other grid energy-storage contracts that would account for 37-megawatts of storage.

This project is one of the most notable happenings on the energy side of Tesla since the company set out to buy SolarCity in August.

The Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board (CARB) are riding high after exposing Volkswagen ’s emission scam. But the self-proclaimed guardians are running their own regulatory racket. See their shakedown of Virginia-based trucker Estes Express Lines.

Under the Clean Air Act, the Golden State enjoys unique authority to impose stricter emission standards than the EPA, but only within its sovereign borders. Yet CARB exported its vehicle emission standards nationwide by forcing auto makers to re-engineer their fleets to state rules. Now the agency is trying to bring out-of-state truckers to heel.

In 2008 CARB banned diesel engines manufactured before 2010 from California roads. Under the rule, over a million truckers who operate in California, including 625,000 registered out of state, are required to replace their engines with a newer model or install a diesel particulate filter, which can cost more than their vehicles are worth.

This month CARB and EPA announced a $390,000 settlement with Estes—$100,000 of which goes to the U.S. Treasury—for failing to install filters on 73 of 500 trucks it operated in California between 2012 and 2014. Estes has since upgraded its entire California fleet.

CARB doesn’t have authority to subpoena documents from out-of-state businesses, so EPA assisted the investigation by asserting jurisdiction under California’s 2012 State Implementation Plan of the Clean Air Act that includes the truck rule. Last year EPA demanded that a dozen interstate trucking companies show compliance with California’s rule. A CARB spokesperson says the prosecution is “the first of what we hope are many cases.” Caveat trucker.

Not surprisingly, the green police claim they are protecting Californians. According to EPA, the truck rule will prevent 3,500 premature deaths between 2010 and 2025. Yet there’s little evidence linking diesel particulate matter with an increase in mortality in California, which has among the lowest age-adjusted death rates in the country.

Studies show a weak association between mortality and particulate matter in Appalachia and the Midwest, but virtually no correlation in the western United States. This may be because the chemical composition of particulate matter—which can be generated from dust, wildfires, pollen, power plants, mining and farming—varies by region. Diesel exhaust makes up a small fraction of these fine airborne particles.

Notably, the epidemiological study that CARB used to justify its truck rule in 2008 had to be corrected after it was revealed that the report’s lead staff scientist had purchased his statistics doctorate for $1,000 from a diploma mill. CARB later revised its estimates of premature deaths prevented by the rule down to 3,500 from 9,400. After discovering the deceit, CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols failed to inform the board and went ahead and propounded the regulations for adoption.

In other words, the regulations under which EPA and CARB are prosecuting truckers are based on dubious science. But when the cause is green virtue, such details don’t matter.

Denmark is slowly retreating from some of its most ambitious, self-regarding climate initiatives. In an unforeseen attack of common sense, the government is readying to end its generous tax breaks for citizens who buy low-carbon vehicles because of the expense imposed on the public purse.

This will triple the retail price of electric cars like the popular Tesla (Model X pictured above) and remove their competitive price advantage against standard fossil fuel-powered models.

A draft budget proposed last week would extend an existing 180 per cent automobile tax to electric vehicles and place their pricing alongside all other standard competitors.

Bloombergreports the country will also make diesel vehicles more attractive by cancelling a pollution levy, according to provisions in the 2016 budget draft. The government is defending the measures by saying they will help businesses save money and create more jobs.

“Things have to be done with reason,” Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen told reporters after the draft was unveiled in Copenhagen on Tuesday.

Denmark’s move marks its latest retreat from measures that had once put the Scandinavian country at the forefront of policies designed to promote renewable energy. The three-month-old centre-right Liberal government led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen has already said it is abandoning ambitious CO2 emissions targets and dropping plans to become fossil-fuel free by 2050.

Denmark’s government has also flagged a pull back from decommissioning coal-fired power stations. That policy shift was revealed on Sept. 2, the same day U.S. President Barack Obama made a global appeal for urgent action to fight climate change.

Mr. Frederiksen argues that tough decisions need to be made against the backdrop of a widening budget deficit and subsidising green power projects is no longer financially viable.

This isn’t a UK only development, all ‘early adapter nations’ are changing the system from subsidized to monetized. Logical consequence from short term policies. At a certain moment too many people apply for subsidy so a tax needs to be levied to compensate. In this instance it’s a fair one, the user pays. Finally. Sure buy solar panels which never ever are going to attain rated capacity in the northern hemisphere, but pay the real rate for installing 1 Mw/h solar/wind and only getting at best 10% return on investment. As it is now those nations which invested heavily in ‘renewable (as in: perpetual mobile)’ energy generation have the highest tarifs for electricity. For example 1 kW/h consumerprice will go for 0.40 euro in Denmark but only 0.10 in nuclear France.

[image credit: newsolarpanels.co.uk]Looks like curtains for small-scale solar in the UK if the planned new rate of 1.63 pence per kilowatt hour is approved. Financial reality is starting to catch up with ‘green dreams’ in the UK as BBC News reports.

The UK government says it plans to significantly reduce subsidies paid to small-scale green power installations. Under the proposals, the amount of money paid to home owners and businesses producing electricity from roof-top solar and small wind turbines will be limited from January 2016.
Subsidy schemes could be closed to new entrants from the start of next year.

The increasing prevalence of ecologically sustainable products in consumer markets, such as organic produce, are generally assumed to curtail anthropogenic impacts on the environment. Here I intend to present an alternative perspective on sustainable production by interpreting the relationship between recent rises in organic agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production. I construct two time series fixed-effects panel regressions to estimate how increases in organic farmland impact greenhouse gas emissions derived from agricultural production. My analysis finds that the rise of certified organic production in the United States is not correlated with declines in greenhouse gas emissions derived specifically from agricultural production, and on the contrary is associated positively overall agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. To make sense of this finding, I embed my research within the conventionalization thesis. As a result I argue that the recent USDA certification of organic farming has generated a bifurcated organic market, where one form of organic farming works as a sustainable counterforce to conventional agriculture and the other works to increase the economic accessibility of organic farming through weakening practice standards most conducive to reducing agricultural greenhouse gas output. Additionally, I construct my own theoretical framework known as the displacement paradox to further interpret my findings

The ultimate miracle battery is nowhere in sight and the battery remains the ‘weak link’ for the foreseeable future. As long as the battery is based on an electro-chemical process, limitations of power density and short life expectancy must be taken into account. We must adapt to this constraint and design the equipment around it.People want an inexhaustible pool of energy in a small package that is cheap, safe and clean.

A radical turn will be needed to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for portable and mobile power. It is anyone’s guess whether a superior electro-chemical battery, an improved fuel cell, a futuristic atomic fusion battery or some other groundbreaking energy storage device will fulfill this dream. For many, this break will not come in ones lifetime.